Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the draft findings of the Productivity Commission's report into horizontal fiscal equalisation and rebuke the insincere GST fix offered by federal Labor. In the 26 town hall meetings I've held over the past six months, my constituents have made one thing crystal clear: Western Australians are being ripped off by the current GST system, and something has to be done. I agree and I am proud to say that the Prime Minister agrees too. The Prime Minister has acknowledged the system is broken, and, with this draft report, has provided a solid step towards a remedy. That's what leadership looks like. Leaders identify a problem and they seek solutions. Sadly, in recent weeks we have seen members of the federal Labor Party do the exact opposite. WA federal Labor, for example, claim to have a solution, but a reading of their submission to the Productivity Commission demonstrates that they are slavishly wedded to the current system, at the expense of their home state. They put words in the mouths of Western Australians when they write:

The reality is that our local community is not particularly concerned by the specifics of formula adjustments or policy framework.

The member for Perth even called the GST rip-off 'an unprecedented blip on the radar of horizontal fiscal equalisation'. We shouldn't be surprised, though, by the politics driving their ignorance of reality. Bad leadership starts at the top, and the Leader of the Opposition is Australia's very own populist chameleon. He's got his eye on the prize and he knows he needs to carry South Australia and Tasmania in the next election, so he won't seek to rebalance the formula to incentivise those states to invest in their own productivity.

Federal Labor now stands in the path of meaningful reform. Like the boy who cried wolf, they called for change but, when it came knocking, they were found wanting. On this side of the House we do things very differently. We believe that every act of government should be judged by a simple test: is it in the best interests of Australia and Australians? When we apply the best-interests test to the GST model we arrive at a definitive no.

For guidance I take great pleasure in turning to the Liberal Party's federal platform. Unlike Labor's draconian hardback that sprawls over hundreds of pages, our platform is a tight 16 pages and still provides pearls of wisdom. It says, for instance, that we believe in reward for effort as the proven means of providing prosperity for all Australians. Believing in the principle for reward for effort, we in WA have cultivated our mineral and energy industries and have been repaid by watching our royalties flow to states that have actively chosen not to take the same path under successive Labor governments. Thankfully, the Productivity Commission's draft report has identified what we in WA have known for some time. This model does harm to those who seek to raise their state's prosperity through hard work and resourcefulness. The distribution model as it currently stands encourages idleness and imposes a framework of passive government—sit back, enjoy the ride and wait for someone else to do the heavy lifting. We in the Liberal Party repudiate this way of thinking. It flies in the face of our philosophy by encouraging policymakers to disincentivise mining activity and investment in the resources sector. Rather than striving for equality of opportunity, a basic Australian principle, the GST distribution model mandates equality of outcome. This system chokes incentives for prosperity and instead celebrates uniformity, as though every state had the same characteristics, all the while overlooking the really important things that make each part of our Commonwealth distinct and different and valuable.

In short, the current system chastens ambition and weakens the ideal of prosperity. As a Liberal and Western Australian, I ask on behalf of my home state: where is the reward for our effort? I can answer that. In the current system, it is lining the pockets of those less risk-taking, less ambitious Labor state governments. I look forward to the report from the Productivity Commission and I look forward to both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, unlike federal Labor and WA Labor—

Mr Keogh interjecting—

They are led by people like the member for Burt, standing in the way of reform.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Burt, if you want to have your turn in a minute, then you will be silent.